


Lost and Found

by songofdefiance



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Prompt Fill, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 08:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16133090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofdefiance/pseuds/songofdefiance
Summary: After the dust starts to settle, Steve searches.





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Post-CW. Romanogers. Steve has saved Bucky, and he's rescued his friends, but Natasha is still eluding him, and he realizes that he would tear apart the whole world to find her.
> 
> This was a really fun prompt to fill. It's already posted up on Tumblr; I kept forgetting to post it here, so here you go!

Steve starts in Moscow.  

It’s a little bit on-the-nose, but going to the Barton farm is out of the question (especially since Clint’s there, on house arrest), and he doesn’t know any of Nat’s other haunts.  If she’d ever talked about the months after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., he might have a better idea of where to look.

Nat’s never been the talkative type, though.

So, Moscow it is.  One of the fake IDs from T’Challa is enough to get him across the border and into Russia, and his dyed hair and stubble is enough for most people to not look at him twice.  He’s thinking he’ll let the beard grow a bit, to keep his face from being recognized.  He keeps a careful eye out for cameras as he walks down the street, checking in at a little hostel where the receptionist is only a little bit critical of his accented Russian.

(It’s almost easier to speak Russian than it is the other languages he’s amassed over time.  Natasha had been teaching him, and would slip into it at random moments to keep him on his toes.  She’s said that his accent probably can’t be helped.  “But at least you can ask where the bathroom is,” she’d said, smirking.)

He’s playing the part of a tourist, but one that was born in Russia, whose parents moved to Switzerland shortly after his birth.  That’s how he explains the accent when one of the women in the communal kitchen asks him about it.  He’s able to chat amiably enough with the other hostel residents, asking them about the sights in Moscow and where he ought to go.

Someone mentions the Bolshoi, and his mind clicks.  He asks directions to the theatre, giving a nod of thanks at the man who tells him.  He heads there, wearing his customary baseball cap to keep the sun out of his eyes and a light jacket.  

Steve doesn’t find anything at the Bolshoi Theatre, which doesn’t surprise him.  He knew that expecting Natasha to be in Moscow was a long shot, but he also knew that he had to start somewhere.  He stays in the city a few more days, wandering around, trying to find some kind of clue as to where Natasha might be, but there’s nothing.

After day four, he leaves.  He can’t afford to stay in one place for long, anymore.

* * *

Steve is a bit more suited to life on the run than he thought he’d be.

The only other time he’s had to deal with it was in D.C., and then it had felt wrong, as though he were sticking out like a sore thumb.  It’s easier now - easier to roll with it, to use his ‘natural awkwardness’ (Natasha’s words) to his advantage.  Most people look at him and see a good-looking, kind of bumbling guy, and it works, somehow.

He has a couple of close calls.  He’s fairly sure he gets made in Monaco, but he books it over to Nice on a bus before he can see who’s after him.  He takes a ferry to Morocco and loses himself in the blistering sun for a while.  There’s still no hide nor hair of Nat, but everyone else has checked in with him multiple times.  

Wanda is somewhere in Hong Kong, apparently with a shaved head, color contacts, and heavier makeup.  She explains that it’s a disguise that she and Natasha worked out before everything went to shit, and Steve rolls his eyes at Natasha’s ‘creative streak’.  

“You probably could’ve found something a little more low-key,” he points out.

“I am told that that is ‘no fun’.”

Sharon’s playing things close to the chest, slipping back to America and keeping a low profile in Chicago, of all places.  Their conversations are friendly, and she gets a laugh out of Steve more than once, but it settles into something more like friendship than what he thought it might be back in Berlin.  Either way, he’s always glad to hear she’s doing alright.

Clint and Scott don’t check in - too risky for their families.  Sam, however, is currently running around in Cape Town, enjoying the sights, but also keeping an eye out.

“Last person to see her that we know is probably Tony,” he says, during his phone call.  “And even then I doubt she said ‘hey Stark, I’m going on the run now, you can reach me at this address’.  Not exactly her style, you know?”

Steve snorts.  “Nah, her style is more ‘see you never’ and then jumping out a window.”

“Kinda like you?”

“I wouldn’t open the window first.”

“What makes you think she would?”

Steve huffs a laugh.

“Look, man… I doubt we’re gonna find her unless she wants to be found.  No news is good news - if we’ve heard nothing, then it means that she’s probably fine.  Sitting on a beach somewhere, drinking vodka cranberries.  Something with vodka.  So why are you so hung up on finding her?”

Steve pauses for a moment, and lets out a long breath.  “She didn’t have to do what she did,” he says.  “She risked everything to help me and Bucky.  Her heart was in the right place more than any of us, and it feels wrong that I just… left her to the consequences.”

“She got out,” Sam says quietly.  “She must have.  It’d be all over the headlines if she hadn’t.”

“I know.”

“Look,” Sam says.  “My advice?  Be patient.  When she wants you to find her, she’ll let you know.”

* * *

Steve’s about five months in to his status as a fugitive when the rumors start.  He’s started to build connections outside of the law, even though some of the characters he meets are… less than savory.  Still, it makes it easier to have contacts that know the goings-on of the international underworld.

If any of them recognize him, they never show it.  Instead, they start nicknaming him ‘Nomad’.

“Big guy like you,” says Rajiv, his contact in India, “you could probably pick up a few jobs.  Make some money.”

Steve has been gathering money from various caches that Natasha had insisted he set up after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, but even though he’s been frugal it’s starting to run dry.  He considers the idea - mercenary jobs aren't exactly all that different than avenging, although it often involves more dirty work.  But when he’s playing cards with his contact in Vancouver, he hears some interesting news.

“There’s a new merc on the scene,” Mina tells him.  She owns the bar they’re sitting in, and runs guns through it.  “Rising star, gaining infamy fast.  Like, crazy fast.  Never fails a job.  She’s good.”

Steve pauses, glancing at his cards.  He’s shit at poker, but it’s the best way to loosen Mina’s tongue.  “Uh-huh?”

Mina smirks.  “All the ones who get their weaponry from me are pissed to hell and back.  Lotta people want to give the best jobs to her.  Never gives a proper name, though, so everyone just calls her Recluse.  Kinda funny, huh,  _Nomad_.”

“Maybe she copied me,” Steve says blandly.

“Maybe, if you’d actually taken any jobs,” Mina retorts.  “C’mon, Nomad, everyone who’s worth anything can see that you’re good in a fight.  I got a few clients around here who’d be willing to pay you some good money.”

“Recluse, huh?” Steve asks.  “I’ll think about it.”

Later, he’s the one to contact Sam.  Sam’s voice is groggy, like Steve had just woken him up, but Steve doesn’t give him time to recover.  “What’ve you got on a merc named Recluse?”

“A merc?” Sam groaned.  “What, are we gonna be vigilantes, now?  We taking out big-name mercs?”

“Not sure yet.”

Sam grumbles for a moment, but his voice is more alert when he speaks next.  “Recluse, huh?  You know, I think I have heard the name come up a few times.  No one knows her name, but she’s good.  Doesn’t fail a job.  She’s getting expensive quickly.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard, too,” Steve says.  “You think it might be…?”

Sam pauses, then starts laughing.  Steve opens his mouth to explain his reasoning, but Sam beats him to the punch.

“Nah, sorry,” he says, still laughing.  “I’m not laughing because - because I think it’s ridiculous, it’s just - “  He chortles some more.  “You ever heard of the recluse spider?”

* * *

‘Nomad’ ends up taking a job in Amsterdam.  He’s just starting out, so he’s aware that he doesn’t have too many choices, but he manages to get a job taking out a human trafficking boss, and he doesn’t feel all that guilty for that.  

It’s fairly simple - he pulls on a mask, beats the shit out of the guy’s security, and breaks the guy’s neck.  He grimaces afterwards, but the job is done, and at least it was quick.  He would’ve preferred to detain the guy, but he’s had to get his hands dirty before, and now that he’s a ghost, it’s harder to avoid it.

He gets a hefty sum for his work (in cash, thankfully), and a slap on the back from his contact in the city.  It’s the first building block for his reputation, and the more jobs he takes, the more people are buzzing about him.  He’s careful to dial down his strength as much as he can, so that the various agencies in the world looking for Steve Rogers hear about Nomad and only think about a dangerous but normal mercenary.

“Kicking ass and taking names, Cap,” Sam says, during his next call.  “Man, what will people say?”

“A guy’s gotta eat,” Steve answers.

Eventually, he gets asked for by Samia, a retired mercenary living in Algiers, who tells him that she’s got ‘a real big score’ lined up for him.  He scouts out around her house before he rings the doorbell, but it’s not Samia who answers.

He feels like he’s been expecting this moment for months, but it still takes him by surprise.

The hair is the biggest change.  It’s a platinum blond, now, and it’s short again.  The green tac suit is new, too, as are the unusual batons she’s wielding.  The smirk she’s wearing as she looks at him, though, is familiar.

“‘Bout time,  _Nomad_ ,” she teases, waving him inside.

Steve nods at her.  “Recluse.”

She looks pleased.

Samia’s eyeing the two of them from the entrance to her kitchen, but she doesn’t seem that alarmed by their exchange.  “Didn’t know you two knew each other,” she says.

“We don’t,” they say at the same time.

* * *

The job is more of a heist than anything else, but Natasha makes it look natural.  They break into a mansion in Malta that has more security than most U.S. agency buildings, grab a flash drive from the owner’s bedroom (with the owner sleeping, in the bed, not five feet away from the safe they crack).  They’re in and out, no one’s the wiser, and they split their earnings between them.

Steve half-expects… well, he isn’t sure what to expect.  He’s grateful, though, when Natasha doesn’t disappear on him, instead accompanying him back to the hotel he’s staying in.  He sends her an exhausted, but grateful, smile when she suggests she go buy them some celebratory vodka.

“I know you like vodka,” she calls as she leaves, having changed into street clothes.  “Even if it can’t get you drunk.”

Steve takes the time to shower as quickly as possible (the water in his bathroom isn’t always guaranteed to work), and changes into jeans and a sweater just before Natasha gets back.  Her eyes are warm as she waves the bottle at him, holding up two glasses.

“Where’d you get those?” Steve asks.

“Borrowed ‘em.”

Steve rolls his eyes.

Even though it’s been nearly a year since they last saw each other (and that hadn’t been under the best of circumstances), their conversation is light and casual.  When he relaxes enough it feels like she’s never been gone, and it’s only when he remembers that that he realizes just how much he missed her.

“So,” he says, pouring himself another shot.  “Mercenary work?”

Natasha shrugged.  “It’s familiar,” she said.  At his raised eyebrow, she elaborated: “It’s what I did before S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Thought you were with the K.G.B.”

“I was.”  Natasha paused, a haunted look appearing in her eyes.  “This was… in-between, I guess.  I burned down the Red Room and ran away, and becoming a merc was the only thing I could think of to survive.  It was a rough time.  Kinda surprised that you picked it up, though.”

Steve chuckled.  “Sam figured it out, and I couldn’t really think of a better way to send a message back.  Figured you’d know it was me.”

“Big, buff guy named Nomad pulls off jobs with ruthless efficiency only a little bit after I started building a new rep?”  She elbows him lightly.  “Yeah, it wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“It’s not so terrible,” Steve admitted.  “Nice to be able to pick and choose stuff.  Most of the time.”

They fell silent, after that.  Their glasses forgotten, they opted instead to pass the bottle back and forth between them.  Natasha didn’t seem to be the least bit affected by the alcohol, something that Steve had learned not to question.

Steve finally musters the courage to say, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For leaving you to deal with the fallout.  At Leipzig.”

Natasha shrugs.  “I had it handled.  Stark gave me a head start.  Which, he was smart enough to know that giving me any kind of head start meant that he wouldn’t be able to find me.”

“Still,” Steve says.  “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that on your own.”

Natasha’s smile is hollow, this time.  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

* * *

The smart thing to do would be for them to split up after Algiers - to go their separate ways so that they have less of a chance of being caught.

They don’t.

Instead, Steve and Natasha end up masquerading everywhere as a tourist couple.  Either that, or (when they find a job worth their time) they partner up for work.  It reminds Steve of back when they were partners at S.H.I.E.L.D., even though that feels like a lifetime ago.  

Pretending to be a couple is almost ridiculously easy - mostly because they like to try to one-up each other with how sickeningly in love their covers are.  Natasha’s currently winning, having actually recited poetry while they watched the sunset.  (It was somewhat ruined by Steve almost falling over laughing, once they were back at their hotel and away from prying ears.)

Doing mercenary work is even easier.  They barely have to talk to anticipate each other’s moves, and planning the jobs is familiar, a relic from their days leading the Avengers together.  It’s comfortable, but they’re both careful to keep it from getting too comfortable - always moving on, never quite trusting their contacts in the underworld.

Steve calls Sam two weeks into their partnership.

“Told you so,” Sam says, when Steve explains.

“Hi Sam,” Nat says into the receiver, appearing out of nowhere next to Steve and making him jump and glare at her.  She wiggles her fingers at him and then heads to the bathroom to shower.

“Hi Nat,” Sam says, sounding amused.

They’re in a hotel in Tokyo when something shifts.  Steve isn’t sure what it is, only that suddenly their hotel room is too confining, and he tells Natasha that he’s going for a quick walk.  The streets in Ikebukuro aren’t as brightly lit as other parts of the city, but they calm his sudden anxiety, and he takes longer than he’d expected, wandering the city.  

When he gets back, Natasha’s somehow managed to fit herself on the windowsill, staring down at the street below them.  She turns her head and shoots him a tired smile.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” he says.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Sleep for Natasha doesn’t seem to happen very often, from what he’s noticed, but this is the first time she’s admitted it out loud.  Before he can put too much thought into what he’s doing, he settles himself on his bed and pats the space beside him.  It’s not much, but it should be enough room for Natasha.

She raises an eyebrow at him, but Steve just gazes at her.  After a long moment, she uncurls from the windowsill and lies down next to him, unreserved as she presses into his side.  He wraps an arm around her waist.  

It takes maybe half an hour, but eventually he hears a light snore from her, and smiles.

* * *

Steve wakes up to find Natasha wearing a hole in the floor.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Natasha proclaims.

Steve pauses in folding his socks.  “Uh…”

She stops pacing, and turns towards him, jabbing a finger in his direction.  “You.  I like you.”

“I like you too…?”

Natasha makes a frustrated noise, and then takes two steps forward and kisses him.

It’s not exactly new - they’ve been kissing each other whenever they’re in public, selling the idea that they’re a couple.  But this feels more honest than that, and Steve relaxes, settling his hands on her hips.  When she pulls back, she looks a little bit less nonplussed.

They stare at each other, breathing heavily for a few seconds, when Steve says, “You actually had me thinking you were, like… smooth when it came to romance, or something.”

Natasha snorts.  “What gave you  _that_  idea?”

“Yeah, obviously I should’ve known better.  Now I’m just grateful that you never actually succeeding at setting me up with someone, seeing as how it obviously would’ve ended in disaster - “

She shuts him up.  Steve doesn’t mind.


End file.
